A.J.

I found this site initially back in 2004. I'd read a story on Nifty and an author said new chapters would first be posted here. I didn't join until 8 years later in 2012. Must have had other things on my mind like college and guys. I was only a member about 4 months before I joined the staff. I've really enjoyed being a staff member and serving in a number of roles the last 4 years. I've met some amazing people, built lifelong friendships, shed many tears at the loss of beloved members, and hopefully helped countless members and authors enjoy their experience here. Lately I've had a lot less time to spend on the site. I've been trying to get my life back together for years now. As many of you know I struggle with anxiety and depression, which has only gotten worse the last several years. It's far easier for me to sit at home and interact with a website, than to force myself to go out and enjoy life. I decided in November that it was time to step down as an administrator and time to get serious about my future. I gave myself almost two months to make sure that this was the right decision for me, so today I'm announcing publicly that I'm resigning as an administrator. The other site administrators have been amazingly supportive of my decision. They've seen first hand my struggles over the years and have shown me nothing but love and support. I'm honored to call them friends. I'm not vanishing entirely from the site, but I'll no longer be involved in administration or moderation functions after today. In closing, I'd like to quote JSmith's resignation letter from a few years ago. I read it again today and one line really stuck out to me: "It's been a great journey, but it's time for me to move on with my life and see what else awaits." All the best to each of you. It's time for me to see what else is out there. A.J.

How often can I add new chapters and stories? Authors in the moderation queue: When submitting a new story to the site, do NOT post more than the first chapter, or prologue and the first chapter. Additionally, while you remain in the moderation queue, do not post more than one new chapter or new story until the existing chapter/story is approved. The moderation queue is typically reviewed once per day. Do not use the post-dating system while you remain in the moderation queue. All other authors: When submitting a new story to the site, do NOT post more than the first chapter, or prologue and the first chapter. Two new chapter or story updates can be posted per day, total, and spaced at least eight hours apart. Chapters submitted using the post-dating system do not count as long as they're evenly spaced per the rules. Why the limitation you ask? We want our site's visitors to have a chance to read or sample a variety of works submitted each day by our authors. When authors submit too many stories or chapters at once these other works are sometimes lost in the process. We've found stories posted over longer periods of time attract more attention and therefore readers. Not every reader visits daily, so they are more likely to give your story a chance if each time they visit they see a new chapter in the list of recent story updates. Spacing out submissions is a win/win for both your work and your fellow authors' work.

1. Open two working versions of MS Paint via the Start Menu. One for the collage and one for the pictures you'll be using for the collage. 2. In the Collage version: Click Resize > Select pixel circle > Set image size for the overall collage 3. In the Pictures version: Click File > Click Open > Select image from computer folder/drive/USB 4. Click Resize to reduce image size by percentage or pixels by selecting circles and adjusting numbers in field boxes 5. Select Copy 6. Switch back to Collage version: Click Paste 7. Move pasted image to placement you wish on collage 8. Repeat steps 2-7 for additional images 9. Save collage

So, it could be a few things: 1. We just updated to a new version of our upstream forum software. While there isn't a report of this being an issue, they could've messed up notifications. 2. It could be a system/database issue. To address that possibility I just ran database maintenance and rebooted the server. I didn't see anything that pointed to corruption, but better safe than sorry. My hope is that maintenance will magically cure whatever it was that caused this, but most likely we'll never know why this happened unless we find out it's a bug with the newest upstream forum software. Right now this will get added to the list of unsolved mysteries like the Bermuda Triangle, D.B. Cooper, Area 51, and why people like songs that are utter crap.

No number truly gives you a one hundred percent accurate representation for how many people actually read the content of the chapter. We'll be rolling out a more extensive set of story analytics to authors later this year. Additionally, your suggestion would invalidate the statistics for those that post collections of shorts and poetry where a later chapter might legitimately be read more than an earlier chapter. At this time I see no reason to make any changes.

@BHopper2 has answered this question correctly. Viewing a chapter or viewing the story page counts as a view.

I'm a bit unsure of what went wrong. I did a quick unpublish/republish on 11 and 12 and both magically showed up in the list. There isn't enough data to support a conclusion at this time.

As I said, it's not broke now that I can see. That chapter is from April 2015 which was the old system. It has 14k hits in our test system which is a one-time copy of GA we made back in early 2017. That was well above the rest of the chapters. Clearly that chapter has something special about it because it's received another 12k hits since then. But I can't even say for certain that equals a bug. What if it contains a specific series of words that makes it show up in Google searches? Then I'd just be hunting down a non-existent bug that was the result of weird search formulas. I could say the same thing about your reputation though. Your's is 26, 806 and mine is 1,606. But how many bugs have you fixed? That number's likely wrong. I'll go fix it.

I'm not saying it wasn't broke at some point in the past, but it doesn't appear to be broke right now. I just tested with a story and a chapter and it worked flawlessly. It updates about every 5 minutes so if you go to a chapter of your story, hit refresh 20 times, and then wait 5-10 minutes you should see the increase show up. Regarding later chapters having higher numbers than previous chapters, that's usually people finding the site from the Internet and opening links not realizing it's not the first chapter. Sometimes site activity is higher and if your story post coincides with that period of time, or if you post and there is considerable time before the next author posts a story/chapter, you can see a far greater response because of that. As they say, out of sight, out of mind.

When members ask me if Myr really started GA in 2002...

Done.

There probably won't be any immediate answers on this issue. It's complex and it's going to take time.

@Carlos Hazday I did fix this story and chapter 1 on January 3rd, but then you re-edited chapter 1 on the 10th which screwed something up. I'm not sure why that happened, but it clearly did. I've fixed the entries.

I've only applied the fix to one area so far. I'm still working on applying it to other areas.

Can you screenshot an example? I'm not seeing this on my side and it's definitely accurate in the reputation index. It could be something only seen by the person so I'd like to make sure I can replicate it exactly to trace the code in question.

@Carlos Hazday I've fixed the statistics display bug you reported above.

@Lacuna I'd be glad to help you fix your story. Please PM me about it. I can even reset dates if necessary. As for use of the post-dating system, I suggest people NOT use it until I can work with the programmer to get it fixed.

Myr, you need to produce some more stories like this. Such a fun read and I love the subtle references.

I read this twice. It's made me want to ask you questions. On my first read through I had all sorts of ideas about what I really thought you were talking about. You've left me wondering if this is just a short story that reflects aspects of your life, or if this is all you.

@Reader1810 @northie Have these issues cleared up for either of you?

The system has a built-in feature to turn off post counts in specific forums, but there isn't a similar function for reputation. I can appreciate both sides of this discussion, but I think it's important to remind everyone that your reputation on this site isn't a true reflection of you as a person. Whether it is high or low, what I think matters is how you've treated other people you've met along your life's journey. Were you there for someone you knew was struggling with depression? Did you try to make the world a better place for someone other than yourself? Would you be the one to stay with a loved one until the very end holding their hand? I don't mean to be preachy, but I just hope you all keep reputation scores in perspective. Don't let them ever become a barrier to building a new friendship.

@Carlos Hazday I think this is one of the side effects of me restoring the old code from last night before the programmer updated it. The activity stream is probably screwed up for all story related content from last night until about 30 minutes ago. I'm not sure I can fix that. Hopefully we won't have to do any more prior code restores in the future.